Oscar De La Hoya, in perhaps his last fight, will face a fearsome opponent, the undefeated and extremely irritating Floyd Mayweather Jr.

	Boxer Oscar De La Hoya. Michael J. LeBrecht II/1Deuce3

Special from SI Latino

The rumblings of the jet engine are deafening, but for Oscar De La Hoya they're as soothing as an ocean breeze. As he settles into one of the plush leather seats on the Gulfstream G-4 -- one of two $14 million planes leased by his promotion company, Golden Boy, to carry him and Floyd Mayweather Jr., his opponent in a May 5 megafight, on a nine-day, 11-city promotional tour -- he can finally be at peace. Why? Well, for starters, it's one of the few times during the day he can put some much-needed distance between himself and Mayweather, against whom he will defend his WBC super welterweight crown and vie for the title of boxing's best pound-for-pound fighter. "I love being able to interact with people, to shake their hands and sign autographs," says De La Hoya. It's the other stuff that gets a little old. "Sometimes when I'm sitting onstage listening to Floyd run his mouth, I think to myself, Hey, I don't need this."

Since the beginning of this February tour, Mayweather has repeatedly antagonized De La Hoya, referring to him as an "a**hole" and "Golden Girl," interrupting their press conferences and inviting fans onstage to get autographs while De La Hoya is speaking. In Philadelphia one of De La Hoya's bags disappeared from the train carrying the fighters from New York City; only after Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer informed Mayweather that if the bag was not returned he would send Floyd home and continue the tour without him did the bag miraculously reappear -- minus a couple of hand wraps and a medicine ball. In Washington, D.C., while the two fighters were eating lunch at the same restaurant, somebody in Mayweather's group removed some of the food from a cart carrying it to De La Hoya's table and took it to their own table. "Press conferences are one thing, but outside -- I mean, who acts like that?" asks De La Hoya. "It's like Phil Mickelson stealing Tiger Woods's putter."

As the engines grow louder and the G-4 begins its flight from Detroit to Miami, De La Hoya flips through a magazine advertising (what else?) multimillion-dollar aircraft, one of which he swears he will buy "when I can afford it" -- as if his net worth weren't already more than $150 million. Here, inside his private airspace, he is not subjected to the constant taunting of Mayweather, who flies in the other jet leased by Golden Boy. Here, some 30,000 feet in the air, De La Hoya gets a chance to rest his hands, which are more likely to go arthritic from the hundreds of autographs he signs in each city than from the punches he has landed over his 15-year professional career. But the respite won't last long. As soon as he reaches Miami, the process will begin all over again.